Summer 2017 Closes Out with the Worst Labor Day Weekend in 17 Years

by Brad Brevet

September 3, 2017

Thanks to some stronger-than-expected performances, this weekend ended up better than Mojo's forecast and yet, this is still the worst three-day Labor Day weekend in twelve years. The top twelve grossed a combined $51.5 million and you have to go back to 2000, when the top twelve grossed a combined $47 million, to find a worse performance.

That said, both The Hitman's Bodyguard and Annabelle: Creation delivered strong performances to top the weekend. In fact, only four films in the top ten saw any kind of drop compared to last weekend and those drops were minimal with Annabelle's 5% drop being the largest within the top ten. Unfortunately the weekend's new releases didn't make much of a dent with Lionsgate's Hazlo Como Hombre and Weinstein's Tulip Fever failing to crack the top twenty.

Lionsgate's The Hitman's Bodyguard finished atop the weekend chart for a third straight weekend in a row with an estimated $10.25 million. This matches the film's performance last weekend and puts it on track for a four-day weekend around $13 million, pushing toward a $57.5 million domestic gross.

In second, Warner Bros. and New Line may be prepping for next weekend's release of It, which is expected to smash September opening weekend record, but before that film arrives the studios continue to see success with Annabelle: Creation, the fourth installment in The Conjuring franchise. The chiller brought in an estimated $7.3 million this weekend, pushing its domestic cume just shy of $90 million, a milestone it will cross following tomorrow's performance as it's expected to deliver around $8.5 million for the four-day weekend. With this weekend's performance it has also past the $84.2 million domestic performance of its predecessor and just might manage to hit $100 million domestically. Should that happen it would be the only one of this past August's releases to reach that mark.

Third place belongs to the Weinstein's Wind River, which added another 507 theaters this weekend for a total of 2,602 and brought in an estimated $5.86 million for the three-day, a 27% improvement over last weekend. The film's cume now stands at $18.3 million and it will be pushing $20 million depending on how well it performs over the course of the full holiday weekend.

The Weinsteins also finished in fourth position with the second weekend of their animated feature Leap!, which brought in an estimated $4.9 million, a 3% improvement over the film's performance last weekend. The film's domestic cume now stands at $11.3 million after ten days in release.

Rounding out the top five is Bleecker's Logan Lucky, which brought in an estimated $4.4 million for the three-day, a 4% improvement over last weekend, and is expected to hit $5.6 million for the four-day holiday, pushing its domestic cume just shy of $23 million.

Elsewhere, Despicable Me 3 saw the best performance in the top ten compared to last weekend, jumping 35% with an estimated $2.36 million three-day, pushing its domestic cume just shy of $260 million. The film also brought in another $9.9 million internationally this weekend for an overseas total that currently stands at $736.1 million, which puts the film just $6 million shy of $1 billion worldwide.

Just behind Wonder Woman is the first of the weekend's "new" releases, that being Sony's re-release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind bringing in an estimated $1.8 million. The re-release is expected to bring in another $500k on Monday for a four-day total reaching $2.3 million.

Before we get to the two other moderate releases this weekend, the IMAX-only release of Marvel's Inhumans pilot episodes is estimated to have brought in $1.5 million domestically from 393 IMAX screens. Additionally, the release brought in an estimated $1.1 million from 274 international runs in 65 markets with debuts in Italy (Sept 15), Germany (Sept 15) and South Korea (Sept 22) yet to come.

Outside the top twenty is where we find the Weinstein's release of the long-delayed Tulip Fever, which brought in an estimated $1.2 million from 765 theaters for an average of $1,588 per theater. Lionsgate's release of Pantelion's Hazlo Como Hombre didn't perform much better, delivering an estimated $1.1 million from 382 theaters for an average of $2,945 per theater.

In limited release, Viceroy's House from IFC opened with an estimated $44,736 from four locations ($11,184 PTA); the documentary Dolores from PBS opened in one New York location with an estimated $14,125; Film Arcade's I Do... Until I Don't brought in an estimated $177,692 from 165 theaters ($1,077 PTA); Hammond's Valley of Bones finished with an estimated $101,962 from 300 locations ($340 PTA); and FilmRise's The Vault brought in $4,700 from 11 locations ($427 PTA).

Next weekend WB and New Line will release the much-anticipated Stephen King adaptation It into over 4,000 theaters, Open Road will release the Reese Witherspoon rom-com Home Again and Atlas will debut 9/11 into approximately 400 locations.

You can check out all of this weekend's estimated results right here and we'll be updating our charts with weekend actuals on Monday afternoon.